


swing high

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Homestuck Shipping World Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things that help insomnia; 4 am in a playground, on the swings, with the one you love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swing high

**Author's Note:**

> "There's a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and [he] takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we're going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment."  
> —Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

Dave wakes up like a bullet being exploded out of the barrel of a gun sometimes. Some nights they alternate beds, so Rose makes him tea and they watch bad reality TV. John just hugs him close and Jade brings him out for ice cream and a walk in the gardens nearby.  
  
Sometimes he finds Jade with her feet dangling off the windowsill, still convinced she can fly. Sometimes he finds stacks and stacks of prussian blue paper scattered across the apartment all four of them share, white pen outlining a thousand buildings, and sometimes he wakes up to her flailing, or her sleepmurmuring geography statistics.  
  
One night both of them have just completely given up on sleep, cradling mugs of coffee in their hands like salvation. They're at the kitchen table before Jade suddenly stands up, her chair making an almighty scrape that could wake the dead. Luckily, John and Rose aren't home that night. Both of them are visiting Vriska and Kanaya. Jade's been peeking in on them by hacking into their webcam/microphone(personal space is a very alien concept to her! she's used to seeing everything from clouds and no one's said anything yet), and the last thing she'd heard was all four of them going out to play in a rainstorm, or John dragging out all three ladies into the cold, unforgiving outside and all of them shrieking and screaming.  
  
Dave had called it the most sappy porno he'd ever pay fifty dollars to watch. "I taught him well," he'd smirked, while he sipped his joe. They blatantly do not talk about Terezi, or Karkat, or Aradia, or Bro. It is one of their rules, only broken when they're all drunk as get out. When he wakes up stammering his name, or she wakes up yelling Bec's, all they do is settle on the couch and watch  _America's Next Top Model_  until they all pass out after Tyra gives the results.  
  
But now Jade's standing up in the middle of the kitchen. Oh, Dave knows _that_ look _._  It's that look Jade gets whenever she's got an idea stuck in her mind and she will stop for NO ONE to execute it.   
  
Which is why he's suddenly in the playground at the end of the block at 4 am in the morning, watching Jade swing past him with stunning volition. He can tell she's barely holding back shrieks and whoops, and he rolls his eyes, but he's happy if she is. He's sitting on the swing next to hers, his back facing her, and when she swings back he can see her face lit up with delight right before she swings up again.   
  
Jade eventually tells him to "have some fun, you dork!!!!" and he digs in his heels and pushes, remembering third grade all over again, trying to do an entire 360 rotation. Eventually he forgets that he's supposed to be cool, that he passed the age of 18 already, and when he hits the zenith of his ascent he lets out a little huff of a laugh, staring up at the moon and stars rotating above them. He goes faster and faster, higher and higher, and he secretly suspects somehow that Jade is warping the speed; they're going in opposite directions so fast it must look like they're colliding a hundred times only to come out unscathed. For one awesome second he holds out his palm as they pass by and the resulting high five-"HI FIVE HELL YEAH" jade yells- is so awesome his hand probably will not be able to high five for days. It is a swing five, capable of decimating every awesome thing in its path.   
  
Jade's laughing almost uncontrollably after that, with joy, with the disbelief that comes when you realize that you really are having fun, and he can't help laughing too. The sound echoes throughout the neighborhood like bells. Right now they're here, alive, the sound of their laughter stealing into the night as dawn draws close, and it's so perfect and beautiful. They could go on forever, infinite, and somehow they do.


End file.
